


when the sun comes 'round

by GibbousLunation



Series: Quirks (Are)n't Everything [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Injuries, Ryuji is doing His Best, Self Confidence Issues, Superpowers, Team as Family, everyone loves ryuji, fires and burning buildings and cliches oh boy!, ryuji/yusuke/akira if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GibbousLunation/pseuds/GibbousLunation
Summary: Ryuji is Fine. He's great, he has the best boyfriend possible, he's an established hero, he's great. He's 'effin awesome.Except for all the ways he's not.That’s the thing about life, he guessed, once you took enough out of the world to grow tall, it started taking pieces back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I didn't lie! I am continuing this series in weird little bits and pieces. There's something kind of nice about just writing snippets about scenes that crop up in my mind and not stressing about where it's going. But yanno, direct consequence of that is a whole lot of introspection and maybe a little too much projection. Shucks, who'd have thunk. 
> 
> You should probably (maybe?) read the first part to get the full picture for this one, but it could also stand on it's own if you so choose! I'll update the second part soon, I have half of it written up already ; )
> 
> Anyways, I hope you find something in this you can take with you. And as always, thank you for reading!

The realization isn’t a smooth sinking comfort, or even a face full of biting wind that snapped him wide awake. It started like a whisper but then built outwards and inwards until there was nowhere left in his lungs to breathe.

That’s the thing about life, he guessed, once you took enough out of the world to grow tall, it started taking pieces back.

The problem here was complicated in a way he hated, too. Ryuji wasn’t a smart guy by the best of days, he’d stumbled through school and interviews and everything else just diving head first and hoping he’d find the surface again. Complicated problems grew like vines and thorns if you weren’t careful, and Ryuji was all wrong footed and oblivious, confusing his left and rights like his brain couldn’t match directions with reality; two parts abrasive and one part stubborn. He tore at complicated like it wouldn’t grow back three times taller the next day, and it always did.

It started with a quiet phone call home, an apology heavy on his lips because yes Akira, he knew it was the third late night this week, but the new heroes asked him if he could help them train and he’d volunteered to help with the clean up downtown after the last big brawl had taken out a full building, and it didn’t really matter if he was tired tomorrow anyways, honestly.

“Ryuji, you don’t have to,” Akira breathed static across the line, Ryuji’s heart twisted and lurched at how _ tired _ he sounded, at the haunting purple wafting around the quiet sigh.

“It’s fine, Akira, really! I like helping, you know I do,” Ryuji tried to put as much positivity into his voice as he could, thinking if he sounded cheerful enough that Akira would let it go and rest for once.

Akira sighed again, Ryuji could practically see him pinching the bridge of his nose in some abject frustration. “That’s…. really not the problem, you know.”

Ryuji frowned a little. “I don’t really know what the problem is then, dude.”

“Why does it have to be  _ you _ ?” And, yeah, that was definitely some heavy purple laced helpless sorrow there, enough to make Ryuji panic a little and wonder when he’d lost control of the conversation exactly.

“W-well…. Cause I’m here, yanno? And it’s my hero agency, right?”  _ That’s why I became a hero, _ Ryuji thought, a little desperately.

Akira didn’t speak for a long moment. “Right,” he said, even quieter, and abruptly the purple fuzz cut out. A wall of nothing, like back when they’d first met. Ryuji’s heart was bricks and mortar and impossibly heavy.

He was frantically jogging back through the past few days, skimming over the morning coffee’s and bed-headed Akira’s and tracking for any sign that he’d missed something this big. Anything that would justify why a friendly call home would make Akira shut him out.

“I- I’m sorry, I can, yanno- I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” Ryuji stumbled, the comfortable warmth in his office feeling more and more solid, an entire collapsed star turning inwards.

“No, no. You’re fine, Ryu.” Akira’s tone turned sympathetic, almost. A practiced kindness formed from years of dealing with Ryuji’s shit constantly. “Just be careful, get home soon. I’ll keep the lights on.”

_ You’re fine, Ryu.  _

Except for the all the little ways he inescapably wasn’t that piled up more and more every long stretched out evening. Except for the way words stuck tight to his chest and couldn’t be pulled loose. The ways little phrases and turns of phrase had him reeling for hours, a well of apologies set to burst.

_ You’re fine, Ryu, _ except for when he constantly messed everything up.

The thing about mistakes was that there really was no ground zero, no equalizing counter action to balance out the bad. A mistake was like a tear, patched up but always visible. A choice that meant a scuff mark that just built up more and more. Ryuji had been trying to scrub the stains around his heart clean since he was sixteen, before he’d even understood the ways that time and age placed weights on the little things, the ways that change either swept in all at once or never at all.

Ryuji was a runner by nature, and life was a race, his bad leg kept making him fall farther and farther behind.

It wasn’t that he thought good deeds would cancel out the negative, or even that he deserved to be in the plus side, just that the world could use more good as a whole. Collectively and individually, it was all shit, and if there was anything left in his lungs to keep him moving, he’d keep trying. It wasn’t that he thought he was the chosen saviour of goodness, obviously- hard to compete with Ann or Shiho or Yusuke or Makoto even in the small fractions of fractions- just that he could, so he  _ should. _ Or maybe that should had grown three sizes too large, a to do list that was etched in ink against his heart and just kept getting longer. Maybe it was a should that had somewhere along the line become a  _ have to _ , a must. Maybe that was what Ryuji deserved.

Maybe he had sewed himself up right alongside a crayon sun coloured kite that never left the ground, maybe he’d signed some part of himself away with the #2 plastered right beside his name. Maybe he thought, deep dark down, that he was only worth as much as he gave back, and maybe the world hadn’t given him very much to start with, but that was okay.

He was making kids happy, helping people who didn’t get helped, that’s what mattered. All big picture and pretty, hung in the stars.

Maybe that have to had grown a little desperate somewhere along the line. A little too outlined, a few too many underlines. If he could then he should, and if he should then he had to. Simple enough for even a goofball like him to get.

Except, after the long hours of plastering on a smile for the cameras and for the newbies, he was still holding it up like a streamer in an empty room and he wasn’t sure who for anymore.

Akira had mentioned it once before, right after they’d pulled off the whole Phantom Thieves thing and normalcy had become something painted in neon lights and two steps away from real. He hadn’t put a word to it, even then. Just a hand on his shoulder, the faintest press of his lips to Ryuji’s cheek, and a question of  _ ‘are you really okay?’ _

“It’s okay if you’re not, you know.” He’d said it so calmly, like that was obvious. Like Ryuji hadn’t been carefully bottling up and labelling things too big for him to understand since before he could read. Like it mattered if he wasn’t.

But then, of course Akira thought it mattered, and that was a kind of precious gift Ryuji couldn’t bear to open.

Meeting his friends had meant all of it was a little closer, that some of the bottles lining the farthest corners of his mind were empty, corks pushed open through careful persistence and far too earnest eyes. Having people to trust and who trusted him so implicitly made everything seem so out of focus but high definition all at once. Like he could talk about things he’d never said, and they’d hear and understand him. They’d see all the facets and layers to his smiles, but it wouldn’t make them walk away; like they could talk to him about their own bottles and smiles and not for a second regret it.

Sometimes bad habits had louder voices. The thing about patterns of behaviour, was that it was easy to miss the comfort of having nothing. And sometimes problems were complicated in ways that meant they hid in plain sight, that you spent up all your energy digging without ever realizing you didn’t know what you were looking for.

Ryuji spent his weeks lending every part of himself in a thousand different directions and had none left for Akira by the end of it. And Akira was sick of it, he knew.

The click of Akira hanging up might as well have been an avalanche.

He’d thought he was getting better, he’d been so sure. After everything, with graduating and hero training, and working his way up in the pro hero field, he’d figured the pieces would have to just fit themselves into grooves and tracks eventually. He’d been smiling more, talking with his friends about genuine feelings he had, his mom radiated warmth and roses, but nothing seemed to touch that voice in his head. The voice that sounded far too much like long forgotten doorway hinges and tiled floors with a crooked leering smile.

He could see in over saturated high definition, that his friends loved him. It was written in an all over sort of way, the golden dust around their cheeks when he walked in the room, the way Ann always saved him a seat, the way Shiho trusted him enough to let him throw his arms around her and she never even flinched. Futaba called him her ‘friend uncle’ the other day, like her unofficially adopted brother was inevitably and intrinsically tied to Ryuji the way the sky was tied to the stars, like Ryuji and Akira had become Ryuji-and-Akira and it was just obvious and simple. Akira made jokes about their two point five kids and picket fences, and how they’d have to paint it all grey and black just to keep up the notoriety when they were too old to be mysterious- his heart twirled at the easy way Akira thought of a forever neatly alongside Ryuji’s.

He knew they loved him. He  _ knew _ .

That didn’t mean they couldn’t stop loving him, though.

It wasn’t that he thought depleting himself to the core would fix that, really. Keep them all pleasantly satiated enough to ignore his hang ups and many, many mistakes. But maybe, if he worked hard enough, said yes to everything, then they’d stick around just a little bit longer. Maybe he’d find a way to make that voice a little quieter, if he just smiled a little wider.

Ryuji really, really, _ really _ , did not want to go home that night. 

He procrastinated a little, guiltily, knowing Akira was likely waiting at home with dinner. He desperately wanted to see his boyfriend, like an ache under his skin that only got stronger with each hour they spent apart, but he knew it would mean talking. Lots of talking, probably. He was tired, he was pulled taught and twisted up and feeling half a breath away from running to the ocean and just screaming. Akira would probably let him put it off another day, too, because he was sweet and kind and could never seem to stay mad at Ryuji somehow, but Ryuji wouldn’t feel better tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that.

Ryuji really wasn’t sure when he’d gotten this bad.

The danger with staying out later, and with being a professional hero with a complex of some kind that towered above him, was that he was a magnet for trouble on the best of days. Which meant on the bad days, it was surprising he’d even had a moment to breathe.

“Help!” Someone cried, a few blocks over. Ryuji scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes and imagined a steel wall sliding shut. His smile lit like an unsteady flickering flame, anxiously coaxed to a hesitant life, and he took off running.

Rounding the corner, he was met with an older, dilapidated building with peeling edges and faded red bricks; it tilted to the side like a wilted flower and radiated a sleepy sorrow against the grey sky. Or, yanno, it would have, had there not been a raging fire bursting to life inside.

“Great,” he muttered, sliding to a stop a few feet back and scanning the windows. “Hey! Everyone out safely?”

A small assortment of people had gathered outside, some coughing and pale against the bright spotlight of heat in front of them. A lady with messily piled brown hair rushed over to him, eyes shining.

“Skull! Oh, thank god, thank you, thank you!” She practically sobbed, hands fluttering around him. “Third floor, there-there’s an older lady. She can’t walk too well, I-I thought she was visiting her son this week but- oh  _ god _ , I heard her i-in there! A few minutes ago, and… she’s room 402. She’s still up there, you have to get her out!”

_ Sorry Akira, _ Ryuji thought wistfully. He nodded, clenching his fists. “Yeah, of course. Uh, have you called anyone yet? Firefighters or-?”

“Mica did, think he’s still on the phone.” She gestured vaguely back at the crowd, who were all staring up at him with various shades of shock and panic, a thrum of hope like an increasing drum beat building hazily through them.

“Good, when they get here tell them to keep the perimeter. Are you sure no one else is up there?”

She shook her head, hair spilling more out of her bun with how hard she was trembling all over. “I-it’s a small building, half the rooms are empty now anyways. She’s the only one, I’m sure of it.”

Ryuji cracked his knuckles and shot her his patented cocky smirk. “Awesome, precision shit isn’t my strong suit anyways. Do me a favor and make sure everyone stays clear, alright?” She blinked at him, and before she could reply Ryuji charged into the building.

Focusing outwards beyond the fire was easy, feeling the spin of tumultuous energy and pulling it in felt like flexing his fingers. Simple. There wasn’t much Ryuji felt so confident in; running, and helping people, the two poles his skill set revolved around.  _ This is why, Akira. _ he thought.  _ This is why it has to be me.  _ The front door had been hanging by a hinge, the door towards the stairwell was locked, however. The building looked ancient, it didn’t make sense for a fire exit to lock, but he assumed the fire codes weren’t exactly looking too great anywhere else in the complex either.

He pulled a fraction of the electricity in his bones forwards, conjuring up an image of Ann and Shiho’s wedding last spring and steadying his breathing. The happy-love-joy swam neatly through the scared-panic-hope, like a loose thread pulled taught. Electricity sang into his toes; he slid closer to the door and kicked outwards and the whole thing popped off the wall, hinges and all. 

Siphoning a little more to boost his speed, he vaulted up the stairs to the fourth floor, luckily finding that one open already. Smoke poured in dark rivers across the ceiling, Ryuji pulled his mask lower and his scarf higher to keep from coughing. “Hey! Can anyone hear me? I’m a pro hero, I’m here to help!”

His gaze tracked frantically across the narrow hall, 405. 404, 403, and- there! Ryuji lurched forwards to the glistening door numbers, elated that things were running so smoothly for once. Which was of course, exactly why they immediately had to pull the rug out from under him.

Or rather, the floor.

_ Crack _

“Oh shit,” Ryuji gulped, just as the floorboards underneath him caved inwards.  _ This is gunna hurt, _ he thought distantly, followed by a stream of curses as his ribs took the brunt of his weight a floor below, and a burning pain ripped through his side.

Ryuji groaned as the world finally stilled itself. “Aw, man. Akira’s gunna be so pissed.”

Ryuji blinked down at himself and took stock, probably bruised ribs. Maybe fractured, hard to tell these days when they so frequently rolled into each other. He’d landed bad on his shoulder so that’d be an issue later, and- oh. Yeah, that would be a chunk of wood just nicely splintering his side.  _ Awesome. _

A faint coughing echoed down to him from 402.

“I’m comin’, I got ya,” Ryuji moved to stand, slowly. Achingly. His side throbbed, but honestly, even in his short few years as a pro hero, injuries were more or less a job requirement. “Alright, Sakamoto. You’ve had worse, just get this figured out and then deal with it.”

He frowned for a moment, pulling at the thread of a spark hovering under his skin. He’d lost some of his build up with the fall.  _ Just need enough juice to get me up there, and through the door. Then we’ll just take it step by step from there, right? _ Falling was really not good for his bones, particularly the bad one in his leg. All of his old injuries throbbed at him in different tempos, his leg a beacon in the rest. It was risky to over work himself, he always ran the risk of becoming permanently out of commission if it got injured again, and he could feel the finish line approaching on the horizon already. But it wasn’t here yet, and he was still standing. That was enough.

He carefully channeled a bit of energy, reaching out a little to see if he could feel anything in the floor above. Half for energy and half just to make sure the person up there was still you know,  _ alive. _ He caught a thin thread of something, not quite fear. Acceptance maybe. On second thought, he kinda wished he hadn’t felt anything. Yikes.

“Not on my watch,” he muttered, and slammed his foot downwards, using the electric build up to launch him upwards, cheesy pose with one arm out and all. He hadn’t planned exactly how he was going to land, though. The crash through the front door was bruising on top of bruises. All over bruises. He refused to acknowledge any of them, scanning the room immediately after gathering his bearings.

The apartment wasn’t the center of the fire, but it had been long enough that the smoke had found its way in, big streaming clouds gushing through the now open doorway. Ryuji’s lungs certainly weren’t happy, but he called out anyways.

“Hello! Hey, ma’am? Can you make a sound for me?”  _ If you’re conscious,  _ he thought distantly.

“’llo?” a warbly voice called back. Ryuji immediately sprinted towards a nearby door, slamming his shoulder to push the old wood door open. The older lady was sprawled out on the carpet floor, a walker upended nearby. A beam from the upper floors had fallen and barricaded her in. Ryuji catalogued everything simultaneously, shoving his own fears backwards and reaching out to find hers instead. She was…. Strangely calm. A pleasant hopefulness swirled towards him, syrupy sweet.

“Hey! My names Skull, I’m a pro hero and you can trust me, okay? I’m gunna do everything I can to get you out of here safe. What’s your name miss?” He edged closer, noticing the embers that flared in the old splintered wood.

The lady smiled, her eyes not quite finding his. “Miss and ma’am, you’re a sweet young man, aren’t you? It’s Yamamoto. I do hope your quirk is a strength based one, I think the building isn’t quite as sturdy as it used to be.”

Ryuji blinked, and snorted. “Don’t you worry about that, ma’am. I didn’t graduate for nothin’.” He moved closer to the beam, Yamamoto was practically pinned into the corner of the room by the beam, and without her walker, she was likely not able to travel very far or quickly. Ryuji closed his eyes, and pulled the hopeful aura close to his chest, it wasn’t a lot, but. Positive emotions tended to be more predictable, anyhow. He figured he could direct a wave of energy through the beam, severing it from the roof above. However, there was the chance the roof wasn’t exactly stable either. Pushing himself under the beam would work, but it would be hell on his arms. He could likely lift the beam, and whatever the beam was holding up, but Miss Yamamoto likely wouldn’t move fast enough to get downstairs on her own anyways. Not without an elevator. Damned old buildings.  _ Safety of the civilian always comes first, Sakamoto,  _ Sojiro’s voice reminded him.

_ You got it, Boss, _ Ryuji nodded to himself.

“Alright, ma’am. I’m gonna need you to grab my hand here in a minute. I’m gonna push this thing out of your way here, but I have to pull you out of there at the same time. It’ll be fast but I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”

Yamamoto smiled, a little. “Skull, you said? I heard about you, on the radio.” Ryuji winced. “Standing in front of all those people, telling them they’ve been doing everything wrong for years…”  _ Ah, _ Ryuji’d heard this one. The ‘you youngin’s don’t know what the world was like before, everything is better now because it isn’t at least not completely on fire like when I was you’re age’ spiel. At least this lady wasn’t throwing things at him for ‘ruining the economy’ or whatever.

“Bravest thing I’ve ever heard,” she continued, something like awe and admiration colouring her voice a cheerful sunbeam yellow. Ryuji’s cheeks heated up.

“I dunno ‘bout all that-“

“Now, now, it’s true, no need to deny it.”

Ryuji pushed that far back too.  _ Later, he’d deal with this later. _ “U-um. Okay, well. Thanks. I’m, uh. I’m gunna lift it in a second here, are you ready?”

Yamamoto nodded, no wavering of anything negative followed suit. “Alright, three…. Two…. One!”

Ryuji planted his feet, channeling everything into a kinetic loop, closed circuit and building with each second. He slammed his hands underneath the old wood, ignoring the heat as best as he could as he focused on lifting with his knees, with everything he had left. It was agony, an eternity, but Yamamoto’s aura was a warm sunny beach day, it was a smiley faced sticker, sticky fingers on an ice cream treat, Akira’s eyes in the morning light and- finally, “Now!”

Ryuji was throwing the beam out of their path, enough that there was a gap between the wall and Yamamoto, and he lunged for her, grabbing her arm and  _ pulling  _ as the roof creaked dangerously around them. He curled himself around her and pushed with the last spark of energy to leap as far forwards out of the room as he could. He felt a cascade of something, plaster maybe, and a sharp pain in his shoulder, and he forced himself upwards before the aftershocks hit his nervous system. Yamamoto looked a little dazed, her kind face a little soot covered, but unharmed. Ryuji heaved her upwards in his arms, bridal style and took off towards the apartment door, leaping across the gap he’d made previously.

“Sorry about this Yamamoto-san!” He gasped, noticing the way his lungs were absolutely blaring at him for the first time. Yamamoto coughed in reply but smiled brightly at him nonetheless and patted his chest gently. Maybe it was the smoke or the adrenaline, but it felt almost like absolution.

Ryuji took stock of the landing, the fire had spread faster than he’d expected. Probably somethin’ about the old wood or… Makoto would know the specifics. The stairwell was barred off with a chunk of fallen wall, but from what Riyuji could see anyways, there wasn’t much of a staircase left.  _ Shit. _

“Shit,” he emphasized. Yamamoto coughed.

The hallway was beginning to look more and more like an obstacle course, and he could hear crashing and crumbling from other floors as the building shifted ominously.  _ The civilian always comes first, _ Ryuji, Sojiro’s words reminded him.  _ A hero has to take risks sometimes, take the lowest odds when no one else will, but never on a civilian. _

_ You have to be safer,  _ a memory of Akira sparked up in his frantic mind. Akira’s ungloved hand pressing against the side of his cheek as he carefully applied a band aid.  _ You come back to me in one piece, alright?  _ Of course, at the time Akira himself had been sporting a sling from a dislocated shoulder from his most recent super cool secret agent whatever mission, which made the whole thing hilarious at the moment.

It was less hilarious now with the smoke pressing against his ribs and cracking through his throat.  _ Sorry Akira. _

Ryuji made his way towards the only window at the end of the hall, the effin’ light at the end of the hellscape tunnel. It was a long way down, even just four floors. Long enough of a fall that it would definitely mean some kind of broken bones, and likely painful injury for the lovely old woman currently relying on him to keep her safe.

But, the fire escape in the building across from them would likely be a feasible option. However, it was too far to jump at least by regular means. His leg’s insistent angry throbbing reminded him that was questionable at best. A loud crash behind them along with the sudden sloping of the floor made the choice for him pretty quickly.

“Hold on ma’am!” Ryuji yelped, frantically pulling at the fear sparking in his chest to give him momentum as he directed his bad shoulder towards the glass and barrelled through.

Using emotions based in negativity, Ryuji had learned, typically meant dangerous things. Like his powers going haywire for example, or not working at all. If it was just him, facing the odds would be fine. Well, less fine more occupational hazard, but fine overall. With Yamamoto clinging to him, her heart a hummingbird flutter in her fingertips against his neck, Ryuji found himself begging the universe for a win _. Just this time, for her, let me be good enough. _

He hadn’t realized he’d slammed his eyes shut, focused on the wall of heat to his back, the sharp sting and spark of hot pain in his shoulder, the abrupt cool breeze slamming against his clammy skin.  _ Just let me be good enough,  _ he begged to nothing, to everything.

Landing on the metal staircase was nirvana.

The railing creaking dangerously was about par for the course, but for once, it held.

Yamamoto tapped his cheek again when he’d managed to make his way over to the waiting crowd, now complete with an ambulance and EMT responders and a team of firefighters setting up equipment urgently. Her smile was wide, and her eyes clear even behind the precautionary air mask; Ryuji felt like crying for a long moment.

Then the camera crews showed up, along with red and blue spotlights and  Ryuji forced his spine straight and his smile wide.

“Mr. Skull, you really should come with us-“ A worried paramedic hovered nearby.

“I’m good man, just make sure everyone else is okay.”

“W-well, sir, we have and everyone else is-“

“Hey, thank you for checking on me, really. I’m fine, though. Heroes are always fine, right?” He winked, and the man frowned a little, just a press of a shadow between his brows but he smiled back anyways.

“Skull! Skull! We have eyewitness reports that say you charged in to rescue someone, can we get an interview?”

Ryuji forced his smile wider. “Aw, it was nothing. Someone told me there was a lady trapped, I’m glad I found her in time. Looks like a nasty battle ahead for the firefighters here; those guys are real heroes yanno? I just helped make a larger mess.” He laughed a little self depreciatingly, the news reporter smiled back. Everyone smiled and laughed, and then laughed and smiled, and Ryuji felt himself drifting farther and farther away.

He somehow found himself stumbling home anyways, world narrowing in and fading out until it felt hyper real, like a TV screen just that side of too defined, where the movie magic was stripped away to props and sets and lighting cues. His hand but not his hand punched the code into their apartment door, and suddenly Akira was staring at him.

“You’re back,” He said, arms crossed. Ryuji blinked, struggled to remember how to focus for a strange moment, and watched as Akira’s expressed morphed from a pinched frown to something slack and open. He waited for the expression to make sense, to turn into an array of kaleidoscopic colour, so he could read whether Akira was mad or furious or heartbroken or something. His eyes wouldn’t focus.  

“Ryuji, oh my god.”

_ I can’t see, _ he thought dazedly.

Akira was standing there, arms crossed and eyes wide, and Ryuji cou _ ldn’t see anything. _ No grey hum straining at the edges like it did when Akira was upset about too many things but didn’t want Ryuji to read too much into everything until he’d sorted out what was wrong. No panicked burst of too bright or quiet thrum of sorrow.  _ Nothing _ . Akira looked mad, maybe. His pose was, probably. But Ryuji _ didn’t know _ , he didn’t know because he couldn’t  _ see anything at all. _

The low-pitched static in his chest shot up until he couldn’t hear anything beyond his own heart rate, Akira’s mouth moved, and his arms dropped, and suddenly Ryuji was flinching backwards. Like a long forgotten switch flipping, a smell that places you back in a specific point in time, a hazard alarm that had gone dusty with disuse blaring far too shrilly in his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he squeaked, so sure for that split second that he was about to hear yelling or rough hands on his collar, or s _ omething _ , and then blinked as his brain caught up with him. Akira was staring at him now, arms carefully held outwards, palms up. His eyes rounded out with absolute horror.

“I, oh, shit I didn’t…. Akira, I…” Ryuji made an aborted move forwards, noting the way Akira backed up half a step instinctively in response. Suddenly all the energy left him in a vacuum of disgust and something faintly like denial. “I’m sorry, I-” He felt like he was dreaming, probably, or had been. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here,  _ that usually meant you were dreaming right? How many fingers did he have, someone somewhere said you had extra fingers in dreams, right? _

“Ryuji,” there was an arm on his shoulder, something cold under him. Ryuji’s head felt weighted down impossibly and floating. He was… sitting _. Oh. When did that happen? _

A pair of warm golden eyes met his. Ryuji was aware on some level that it meant he was using his quirk, reaching into Ryuji’s tightly locked up heart and wrapping it in comfortable layers of bubble wrap and sweaters until he wasn’t in danger of blowing up half the room or whatever other awful things that happened when he felt things a little too strongly. It was for the best, probably. He’d never lost track of himself that entirely before. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, again, suddenly viscerally needing Akira to understand. He knew he’d messed up, he didn’t get how exactly, but he hadn’t been home and if something was going on with Akira while he’d been so focused on himself and the people at the foundation instead of his own god damned boyfriend then-

“Can you hear me?” Akira cut in, voice gentle, velvety like always. “I need you to breathe, Ryu. Can you do that? Just breathe with me. Focus on my eyes, and on the way the ground feels under you. The feeling of my hand on your cheek. Do you smell dinner? I was making us some green curry. Think about how great it’ll be, delicious and warm, right?”

A hitch unclasped in his chest as he blearily tried to follow Akira’s soft instructions, focusing on the small circles Akira was drawing against his cheek with his thumb, the coldness of the tiles seeping in through his pants, the bright flavour down the hall. He breathed, gasping at first, then slowly more steadily. His head finally made contact again with his shoulders,  _ touchdown Houston. _

“What the ‘eff, man,” he sighed, leaning into Akira’s hand on his cheek and closing his eyes for a minute. “I feel like I just ran the length of the entire city.”

Akira huffed a laugh, more like a quick breath. “Panic attacks will do that to you, yeah.”

Ryuji frowned. “Is that what that was? Felt like my chest was gunna explode or something.”

Akira pulled his hand away, caressing Ryuji’s cheek again carefully. 

“Sounds about right. Is anything broken? Do you want to move to the couch?”

Ryuji ignored his questions, let his head smack against the wall behind him and sighed. “I’m sorry, I think I screwed up.”

Akira leaned back, settling on the balls of his feet in a crouch. “You keep saying that and I’m going to think something happened, you know. Beyond all the bruises, I mean.”

“On the phone. You were mad. Hung up on me.”

Akira pushed a hand through his messy dark hair. He’d let it grow out a little since their graduation, said that it helped with the charming deviant look or something. Whatever that meant. “Ryuji, I wasn’t mad  _ at  _ you.”

Ryuji snorted weakly. “So, you were mad about something I did but not at me? How does that make sense, dude.”

“You stayed out let to help rebuild a city block and be an inspiring mentor to upcoming heroes. And then apparently fought a forest fire from the looks of it. What part of that would require me to be angry?”

Ryuji blushed, a little around the ears. “I dunno….The part where I’m not there for you,” he admitted sheepishly to the ceiling.

Akira sighed, and moved to sit beside him on the floor instead. Ryuji felt a little worn thin, a little scared and shaky, he reached out a cautious hand half expecting Akira to ignore it. Fingers immediately intertwined with his, Akira’s thumb once again tracing the softest circles now against his knuckles. Ryuji let out a long breath, feeling a little more grounded.

“I have a question for you,” Akira said after a minute.

“Shoot.”

“What do you think my job is in this relationship?”

Ryuji startled, snapping his gaze to Akira’s and half turning towards him. The other boy looked casual, practiced casual, stiff edges placed in seemingly relaxed positions. Akira kept his eyes trained on the ceiling.

“What do you mean? Your job? Are you, is this-“

“It’s just a question. Please answer honestly.”

Ryuji’s heart was a fluttering bundle of jagged glass. He breathed around it. “Uh. I guess, you know. Be your awesome self, do all your kick butt secret agent work and come home safe.” Ryuji’s face was pink he was sure, he rubbed the back of his neck, forgetting his whole body was one big bruise. Akira’s regular grey buzz stayed steady but the fact he was seeing it at all, combined with Akira’s unflinching hand in his gave him courage. “Make dinner some of the time, I guess listen to my whiny bullshit once in a while. Keep my toes warm on cold days… shit, Akira, I don’t know what your ‘job’ is man, I just know you make me smile when I wanna be mad, and you, yanno, make me feel like I can say anything and be anyone. You uh, you make me brave. Your job is to be you, I dunno.”

Akira tilted his head down and pressed a smile against his forehead, a wash of pink-gold-red Ryuji was growing more and more familiar with hitting him like a beam of perfect sunlight. Akira turned towards him, pulled him upright and full on bridal carried him over to the couch. “Wh-” Ryuji startled, hands instinctively clinging to Akira’s neck. He placed Ryuji down with far too much care and gentleness and sat primly across from him, grabbing both of Ryuji’s hands in his. Normally Ryuji would get all flustered and crack a dirty joke, maybe get impatient and tackle Akira with a face full of kisses, but the weight between them kept him still. Akira’s eyes were magnets and all Ryuji’d ever been was an assortment of scrap metal odds and ends.

“Okay, now that you’re comfortable. What do you think your job is?” Akira tilted his head slightly, a bit of a knowing smile on his lips that faded sad at the ends.

Ryuji looked down at his feet, the mud caking his hero outfit boots. “I ah, I…. I hope I make you happy? I want to be there for you always, for anything. I gotta make sure I treat you right, because I’d be nowhere without you, and that means puttin’ time with you first, I know, and I haven’t been cause I’m too busy and-“

Akira placed a finger against his lips, smiling that same strange sad smile. “Ryu. Your job isn’t to make me happy, you do that just by being you.”

Ryuji opened his mouth to interject, but Akira shushed him gently. “I wasn’t upset with you today because you were too busy, I don’t feel neglected or forgotten, I promise. You do realize, you’ve been working twelve-hour days plus volunteering for the past two weeks with one day off. And when you get home you spend two more hours on schedules and coordinating and answering emails. Yet you always find time to pack me a lunch, to check in on Yusuke’s latest art update and send him support, play a game or two with Futaba on her evenings off, and chat with Ann and Shiho… And now you come home looking like you had the ever loving hell kicked out of you and have a panic attack on our front step just from  _ seeing _ me. ”

“I know it’s a lot, I’m sorry I’m not home more but-“

“You’re not listening to me, Ryuji.” Akira’s tone was bordering on thunderous, a spark of some kind of frustration mixed with golden impossibly bright love spiralling through the cracks in his calm composure. “I don’t need you to take a break because of  _ me, _ as much as I adore any time with you. I need you to slow down for _ your _ sake. I need you to take breaks because  _ you’re destroying yourself _ . Do you hear me?”

Ryuji blinked. “I’m not-“

“You  _ are.  _ You haven’t been eating regularly, don’t think I haven’t noticed. You don’t run outside of training anymore, I haven’t seen you reading anything in months. You keep assuming everyone is angry instead of just as _ king _ -”

“It’s not like I meant to!”

“Ryuji,” Akira sighed his name like he was begging. Ryuji faltered.

“I…. I got so worked up thinkin’ you were mad at me today I freaked out the second the crew left. Then there… there was this lady and a burning building and, I just kept thinking how mad you’d be that I wasn’t being cautious enough and my quirk started doing that short circuit-y thing and. It’s because of that, isn’t it? It’s… I don’t know when it got like this,” Ryuji admitted, feeling for all the world like his quiet words were some kind of death sentence. Like now that he’d given up the act everything would slip out and away from him. He hunched his shoulders inwards slightly, an old habit, like he could block out the disapproval he was expecting half consciously. Of course, Akira only bled lilac shades of empathetic hurt, only pink and gold constantly, endlessly, under the surface.

Akira’s hand in his squeezed. “You’re doing amazing things, you know.”

Ryuji shrugged, shaken. “I’m just doin’ what I’m s’pposed to.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it. Nobody on this earth would think they were _ supposed _ to do any of the things you’ve done. They’d look at the foundation, at the way you built all of it up with your own hands, the way you did all of it just to help kids who didn’t know they could ask for help, and they’d think ‘wow, I want to be that one day, if I can.’” Akira laughed without a trace of humor in his voice. He shook his head. “It’s not your job. None of this is  _ your job _ .”

Ryuji never felt small around Akira. Akira knew how to lift all the good things out of him Ryuji didn’t know were there. Seeing Akira smile made Ryuji brave in a way that stole the air from his lungs, made him feel like a fortress, something unbreakable and inspiring, something he’d never dared to hope he could be. Trying to make Akira laugh was a joy, being the one to listen to his secrets was the highest honor, the greatest gift, holding him and kissing him was a sunrise on a beach in perfect weather. He felt small now, childlike in his desperate need to be bundled up and held close.

Akira shifted closer, snaked an arm around his shoulders, his other hand reaching down to twine in his fingers. He pulled Ryuji tightly to his side, pushed his head gently onto his shoulder, face tucked into the crook of Akira’s neck. The thrum of Akira’s heartbeat settled in his bones, a metronome to still his pinwheeling thoughts. “You do so much, you know. I’m grateful, everyone’s grateful. Everything about you, where you came from, who you are… it’s amazing. But,” he breathed the words against Ryuji’s temple, fingers carding through the short hair on the back of Ryuji’s neck. Ryuji loved him, it was an impossible thing in that moment, that he could love so much larger than himself.

“But you don’t always  _ have  _ to be amazing. It’s okay to be a grumpy asshole sometimes, I love you because you’re a grumpy asshole sometimes. And you love me because I’m an asshole most of the time.” Ryuji could feel his smile, a slow small thing. His chest ached with it.

“You’re not an asshole,” Ryuji muttered.

Akira laughed, more real this time. Colour breathed back into the world in careful strokes. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Ryuji fell silent for a moment, taking in the bundled knots of feeling in his chest, the way his leg throbbed far away and unimportant. The way Akira faded into radiant orange beams like liquified sunlight, an easy presence. He knew he’d been busy lately, maybe busier than he’d ever been, but he’d assumed that was the point of the whole hero business. He wanted it to be the point, anyways. To be a hero beyond the cameras, that’s what he’d always hoped for. Maybe that meant more manual labour and long hours saying yes to every mundane request that came across the shrill phone lines, but he’d thought that was just part of making things different. Maybe he’d messed that up too.

“I can hear you over thinking you know.” Akira pressed a chaste kiss against his forehead, turning to sweep his thumb across Ryuji’s cheek.

Ryuji scoffed. “I’d have to have a brain to overthink, remember? Naw, I was just….” He sighed. “I dunno. I guess I thought I was doing right by everyone, yanno? I don’t know how to…  _ be _ without something. I keep waiting for someone to tell me I’m messin’ something up, and I keep thinkin’ I’ll beat ‘em to the punch. Stay one step ahead of everything.”

Akira hummed. “You have nothing to prove, sweetheart. You know that.”

Ryuji batted his hand away bashfully. “To you, maybe. That’s just ‘cause you already saw me in my glory days.”

“Says the guy who’s in the running for the top ten heroes, currently.” Ryuji blushed for real at that, he didn’t like thinking about the ranking of everything honestly. The whole top heroes thing felt like a remnant from the Kamoshida days, a holdover that still inspired some kind of competition for the limelight. Or, yanno, it would, if everyone and their mother didn’t already know Makoto was a shoe in for number one.

Ryuji glanced down at their hands, Akira’s gloves were nowhere to be found, which was normal at least while he was home. Akira’s palms still had that scarred white from their high school days, when Ryuji had lost control and nearly killed him and Ann, not that either of them let him say that ever. They still argued he’d reigned it in, at the last second. That his brief glimpse of half-way control meant the actual physical damage got canceled out somehow. Seeing the faint white lines where Akira’s skin had to thread itself back and the burns had to melt away still made Ryuji wince.

It felt like a reminder. A scale that was inexorably tilted against Ryuji’s favor, a chalkboard with tally marks lining every space on one side and barely any on the other. Something neither of them could wash away.

It was all…. complicated.

“You are okay, right?” Akira asked softly, a thread of fear laced underneath. Ryuji heard the unspoken  _ ‘should I call an ambulance? Is there internal bleeding?’ _ and he shook his head, biting his lip nervously. 

“I’m fine, just. Yanno, rattled up. I just. I think…. I think I’m afraid.” He said, after a long moment, to their twined fingers. He saw Akira’s twitch, felt them squeeze back. Akira stayed silent, knowing Ryuji’s tendency to flee at the slightest push far too well.

“I don’t really worry what people think, yanno. That’s never been me, I guess having people hate me and seeing it in big blocky letters above their heads kinda kicked that shit out of me.” He smirked a little self-depreciating. “I guess it’s like, um…what they don’t think. If I’m not helping, if I don’t do everything that I can for the people I care about it’s like…” He scratched his neck, frowning as he tried to find the words tangled up and lost in the mess below his throat.

“Like they’ll forget?” Akira asked, practically a whisper.

Ryuji stiffened for a second, and forced himself to relax, leaning in to press his forehead against Akira’s, still staring at their hands.

“Yeah, I… It’s stupid, I know, but. When I was a kid…. My mom’s always cared, you know that. She was always lookin’ out for me and checkin’ in. But, I wasn’t very smart or good at much. I didn’t do good in class, I wasn’t creative or funny in a way anyone else liked. I wasn’t even the kid who’s dad hurt people a few days ago for the first while, I was just. No one.” He shrugged again, just a drop of the shoulders this time. “I wasn’t anyone to them, you know? And I wasn’t anyone again in high school, before you found me. And I guess I thought it would be okay, being no one. Better than being hated, right? But. I’m constantly carrying around this… this weight. The Sakamoto name an’ all. I think I keep waiting for you all to realize what that means. Like you haven’t figured out who my dad was yet, or that I’m not very good at being you know, good. That I mess up all the time.”

He frowned harder, feeling his eyes burning a little at the edges.

“I keep expecting everyone’s gunna look at me one day, and think ‘hey, that’s the guy I saw on TV when I was little’. They’re gunna look at me and just…. Just see someone I spend every waking moment fearing I’ll turn into. Or worse… they won’t look at me at all. It’s like there’s this stupid voice in my head that thinks… well... It’s shitty.”

“You think you can keep us around by always doing everything we need. That it’s your job to know when something’s wrong.” Akira’s voice was so blank. Wiped clean of anything, no horror or anger, just a monotone realization. Somehow, that was worse than if he’d thrown Ryuji to the ground, like he was just quietly accepting it. His boyfriend was just using kindness like a cheap trick to guilt everyone into keeping him around,  _ what kind of sick jerk did that? Ryuji did. _

_ Lying must be a hereditary gene. _

“Ryuji.” Akira’s hand was still in his, Ryuji was scared to look. He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t see the colours. “Do you know what I saw, that day back at the train tracks? And before, actually. At the sports festival.” Ryuji shook his head, still pressed against Akira’s. He felt Akira’s messy bangs brush against his.

“I remember thinking  _ ‘that is the hottest punk I’ve ever had the pleasure of interrupting.’” _ Ryuji choked a surprised laugh at that. “But after that I remember thinking that you… You radiated bravery. Like a skin-deep armour. You just… squared your shoulders against three villains, stuck out your jaw, and looked like you were ready to go down swinging. And at the festival, when you used your quirk I’d thought- I thought I’d never seen anyone look more like what heroes want to be.” Akira’s arm moved from under him, he turned and cradled Ryuji’s chin, tilting his head up. Ryuji opened his eyes, gaze locking with Akira’s breathtaking dark stare. The anger he’d half feared was nowhere to be found, instead he was swept up in a wave of so much complete unfiltered love, the tears he’d been fighting back spilled over all at once.

“You, Sakamoto Ryuji, are not your father. You are your mother’s big heart. You are my heart. I knew from the second I saw you that night at the trains that you were something incredible. You are incredible because of who you are, not what you do. I just wish you could see it, too. That won’t change because you forget to take the garbages out or come home late. Just as long as you  _ come home _ .”

Ryuji sniffled loudly, he felt for a moment like he was out at sea being tossed around by impossible waves. His free hand swept up to cling to Akira’s shoulder, something more than longing pulling at him in droves. The inevitable way starlight crosses an infinite nothing. The endless encroaching of time. The way the sun burned and rose every morning. Ryuji could no less stop himself from falling for Akira the moment he’d met him if he’d had the heart to try.

“I don’t know how to stop,” he admitted, chest flaying open, seams bursting apart. He was too tired to try to pull it all back in, and that thought alone made the guilt in his chest swell angrily, overwhelmingly. 

Akira moved then, a crashing wave against the shore, pressing kisses against Ryuji’s eyelids, his forehead, each of his fingers, cheeks, tip of his nose, gentle. Endlessly gentle. Ryuji quaked and shook beneath him anyways.


	2. Chapter 2

 

The problem was that it was complicated. A long winding road at the end of a steep mountain climb, a tunnel with no light. _ Keep going, Ryuji. Keep going, you’re doing great. _ Except, in the pitch black dark, he couldn’t tell he’d moved at all. 

 

He had lists, little numbered organized words on a folded piece of paper, quotes and exercises, but it was complicated. It shouldn’t be complicated, probably. Mifune, his overly cheerful therapist with a quirk that felt just bordering on too invasive (even coming from him), often told him he was hypocritical. If Akira could be grumpy, could be sarcastic and avoid answering questions, why couldn’t Ryuji? If other heroes could take vacation days and Ryuji encouraged it, why couldn’t he?

 

He felt like his brain was a drain full of loopholes and justifications that never quite held up under the telescope, but he couldn’t find it in him to disagree anyways. He couldn’t take a day off full stop no question mark. He was a few very specific things, outlined and bolded because People Told Him So, and frankly, that’s really all the time he’d spent thinkin’ about it. Loud, check. Rude, maybe closer to blunt nowadays but yeah. An idiot? Hey, he’d passed school mainly because Makoto had dragged him and Ann by their ears. Delinquent-nobody-screw-up? Well. He was still wrapping his head around that one. 

 

Akira had spent hours just holding him after he’d come home from the building incident, and then as he’d dozed off- adrenaline crash, Akira said- he’d quietly called Morgana and Ann. Morgana to patch up his dislocated shoulder, which, how had he not noticed _ that? _ Ann to patch up his bruised ego and maybe yell at him a little for being reckless. 

 

Ultimately, with her hand in his, he’d managed to untangle a bit of the truth that kept dying somewhere in his throat. 

 

“I feel like…. Like I’m only worth something if I’m helping people.” He’d shrugged, face red and eyes turned to the floor. “‘Cause, I guess if I’m not helping… then I’m not makin’ up for all the bad shit my old man did? All the bad shit I  _ coulda _ done.” 

 

Sometimes he still woke up, mind reeling in disjointed hues of nauseating greens and off yellows, remembering the bar and the fear and the way his whole mind had folded inwards against him when his old man smirked. 

 

The truth was a nasty thing, shriveled up and weak in the face of so much kindness. With Akira and Ann looking at him with furrowed brows, painted in shades of gentle disbelief and exasperated fondness. Morgana rolling his eyes beside them. “It seems stupid when I say it like that,” he shrugged. 

 

“Ryuji,” Ann bit her lip. “Actually, I had to talk to Shiho about something similar not too long ago. She kept overworking herself in med school, yanno? Burned out a little and had a rough time for a while.” Ryuji blinked up, concerned and alarmed. “She’s okay now!” Ann squeezed his hands. “But… you have to know that... what someone did to you? That’s not yours to fix. You can’t take on the world's problems, or every bad thing you’ve seen, and make it your fault. That’s pretty unfair, isn’t it? Thinking you’re more able to fix problems than anyone else?” 

 

“It’s not-” Ryuji sighed, cutting off his instinctive defensiveness before it built into anything more than a spark in his chest. He was too bone tired to be angry, wildly enough. “I’m no better than anyone, that’s stupid. I’m  _ not. _ It’s just… I guess it’s okay if it’s me dealin’ with all this shit? It’s ‘effed up, I know, but if I have to sit around watching, it makes me feel like crap.” 

 

Akira shifted. “Ryu, how do you think we feel watching you?” 

 

He didn’t know what to say to that. Not that he hadn’t thought of it, he wasn’t  _ that  _ selfish. The loop holes and divots in his brain just hadn’t made sense of things that way, it was like suddenly realizing the path you were walking had detours and short cuts the whole time. Not that he would ever take them, but knowing they existed was a wash of colours he hadn’t realized he’d been blocking out. 

 

It was strange, the inherent half truths in his logic seemed so obvious but it didn’t lessen their control over his thoughts any. There was something powerful in taking on the role of the hero in the smallest things, something like having control. Not taking on all the responsibility felt a little too close to helplessness, a little too close to being nothing in the grand scheme of anything. It was easier, he guessed, just to let the guilt pick him up by the ankles and shake him around. 

 

At least then he could justify being so shit at everything, because at least he was mad at himself too. 

 

“What are you gunna do, Ryuji?” Morgana asked, expression still annoyed but his tone falling into shades of gentle blues and purples. “Pile on feeling shitty until you collapse? Make everyone watch you get beat to hell and back, over and over when you won’t listen to anyone telling you to stop?”

 

“I….” Ryuji faltered, guilt like a swelling balloon in his chest. Or an anvil maybe, dragging everything down into the bottom of the darkest ocean. 

 

Morgana kept his stare level. “Or. Are you going to get up and do something about it? The only one who can fix this is you, yanno.” 

 

_ What if I can’t? _ Ryuji thought, like a voice whispering from the corner of his mind.  _ What if I’m too used to being like this? What if it’s all too tangled up and I can’t find me behind it all anymore? _

 

Mifune said it was a practiced thing. He’d gotten good at not letting his emotions control him, a bonus to his training, but he still let them build a fortress in his chest. Like locking them in would stop him from feeling anything he wasn’t supposed to. As if there  _ was _ a supposed to. He was  _ supposed t _ o practice being okay with himself, okay with his limits and asking for help. He had to practice ‘contextualizing what he saw’. 

 

He could see everyone's emotions, Mifune said, but he couldn’t read their minds. He couldn’t know for sure unless he asked. 

 

“When Akira is annoyed, you feel it, right?” She asked, the mirrors and frosted glass windows around them were like a bubble somehow. A magnifying glass as much as a shield. “You saw that he was annoyed, but not the reasons  _ why. _ You assumed he must then be annoyed at you, because you personalized Akira’s feelings and magnified them. You found explanations to back up what you already believed.” 

 

He’d always seen it as a strength, in some ways, that he knew what people were feeling. Ryuji wasn’t good at reading between the lines, figuring out what people meant when they said otherwise. When he could see the bright shades and pop-rock flickers, it was like getting a ‘Understanding Social Skills for Dummies’ book. He’d always figured that whatever people felt was the truth, because everything Ryuji felt was so straight forwards. 

 

“When you feel angry, is it always at other people? Or is it sometimes at yourself?” 

 

He’d frowned. “Course it’s at myself, mostly I’m not mad at anyone else. I’m the ‘eff up.” 

 

She’d tilted her head, lips pursed a little. It kinda felt like he was failing somehow when she did that, like there was a report card at the end of the session and he’d get a D- for participation. 

 

“I know you remember what we’ve talked about, choose a different word, okay?”

 

He slumped. “Uh, I guess… it’s like I’m only in control of myself, right? Easier to be frustrated when you know you could be better?” 

 

She smiled. “And you do know that, right? That there’s a better version of you somewhere in there, one that’s confident and trusts in himself, only you don’t realize that Ryuji is  _ you.  _ Frustrated I think is a better word.”  Ryuji winced, he saw the brief way her eyes glossed over, like she was looking through him. Her quirk was spooky in a way Ryuji had never experienced before, she said it was like seeing a person walking past a fogged window. Glimpses of diverging streams, a fanned deck of cards where she could see exactly what you were about to choose for a moment.

 

Mifune was good at calling him out on his bullshit, it was…. Gut punching, like she was hollowing out his foundations and breaking down shaky walls and handing him all the supplies to build it back up again but telling him he had to do it himself. It was daunting, overwhelming at times. She was there to give tips and tricks, to outline the basic step by step guide, but there was only one toolbox. Mifune believed he was smart enough, though. So did Akira, and Ann, and all their friends, even Morgana. 

 

_ “Are you gunna get up and do something about it?” _

 

He felt shaky, this time. Ryuji was pinwheeling around the thought she was disappointed in him somehow, and it made him panicky in a stupid way. She wasn’t going to be able to hold his hand or walk him through his emotions forever, yet he felt himself clinging already. Finding solid ground on an elevator almost at the top floor. 

 

Akira usually picked him up from his meetings, all soft eyed and softer smiles. Ryuji’d told him he didn’t have to, that he knew Akira had a job, too. He couldn’t be expected to drop everything all the time. Akira had still radiated guilt in unsettling hi definition when he’d called to say his work needed him to go overseas for a week, like he was letting Ryuji down somehow. Like maybe him and everyone else knew Ryuji could never do any of this on his own. 

 

_ No, Ryuji. You saw the guilt but not the reason  _ why. Jeeze, his internal voice even sounded like Mifune. 

 

Well, regardless, Ryuji was determined to prove he would be fine. That he could take the train home on his own, go to work like normal- of course, he’d been quarantined to desk work for a while when his team leaders saw how bruised up he’d been on the TV reports. 

 

He usually was totally fine after talking with Mifune, anyways. Maybe a little somber, tired sometimes, but fine. 

 

Today was…. 

 

Today wasn’t good. 

 

Mifune had been talking to him about his ‘guilt’, getting him to work through in his own words how the alley way incident with Akira’s palms and Ann’s frightened scream wasn’t his fault. That no one blamed him for the fact Kamoshida had found them in the first place. That Shiho was fine, he’d talked to her last week, and she’d never once found it in her big loving heart to blame him for not standing up to Kamoshida earlier, so why was he beating himself up for it? Mifune had even tried to get him to talk about his father but, he  _ couldn’t.  _

 

Maybe everyone knew about it, so maybe it was silly not to take the narrative into his own hands, but it was like his throat closed cement hands around his heart and locked all the words he had inside with it. He knew none of that was his fault, he  _ knew _ that. But. Maybe sometimes it was easier to blame himself for the way his mother’s smile never hung quite right, for the times he’d made too much noise and ruined the rare normal dinners they’d ever had, when he’d complained once and his mom had to intervene when that crossed the invisible line too far. 

 

Maybe sometimes that’s all that made sense. 

“Ryuji!” 

 

He blinked, torn from his non-sequential vague thoughts. He blinked again when he realized he wasn’t outside of Mifune’s office anymore, that he actually had no idea where his feet had taken him. His leg throbbed _ , shit.  _

 

“Ryuji,” the voice called again. Ryuji whirled around, still dazed, his head firmly tied a thousand feet straight up on a hot air balloon. Yusuke’s familiar concerned aura hit him behind the rib cage like an aggressive hug. 

 

“Are you alright?” 

 

Ryuji shook his head, distantly, after a long moment. “I’m. I’m, uh.” 

 

Yusuke’s gaze turned cerulean, pastels on a grey canvas, determined red flashing around the edges. “Where is Akira?” 

 

Ryuji swallowed. “Work, he’s. Um. I said I could walk home, and.” He shrugged, brows furrowing in helpless frustration at his own struggling thoughts. 

 

Yusuke nodded once, “Ah.” His gaze was a search light, thorough and blunt. Ryuji felt weirdly calmed by it. “Alright. Would you like to accompany me for a meal?” 

 

Ryuji stared blankly. Yusuke nodded again. “I would be delighted if you would accompany me.” 

 

The idea of a warm cozy room, of Yusuke’s forward inquiries empty of the usual double speak or bigger picture secrets, strangely made tears spring to his eyes. He forced himself to nod. 

  
  
  


“Am I correct in assuming that you had just spoken with your therapist?” Yusuke asked, after they’d managed to stumble back to Yusuke’s studio apartment, and Yusuke had placed a pot on the stove, plopping Ryuji on a strange plushy couch cushion. 

 

Ryuji sipped at the awful herbal tea, he really hated the unsweetened stuff most of the time. It tasted like angry moss, mostly. It was grounding, now. 

 

“Yeah,” he nodded into his cup. “It’s…. Mifune’s great, yanno. Good at uh, dealin’ with all my stupid shit.” 

 

Yusuke frowned, disapproval like a blast of cold air. “It’s not stupid, Ryuji. How you feel is never stupid.” 

 

Ryuji squirmed nervously, and rubbed the back of his neck. From across the short table, Yusuke looked like some kind of painting. Poised and careful, whiplike in his sharp gaze, yet radiating kindness like a god damned spotlight. Ryuji remembered why he’d always felt strangely microscopic around the artist, like a butterfly pinned to a board but in a comforting way. Somehow he didn’t mind. 

 

“Well,” he laughed nervously, and glanced around the room at the minimal designs, the carefully placed mats and shelves. “I guess it’s stupid cause I can’t… un-feel it. You know? Don’t know how.” 

 

“I don’t see how shutting down your feelings is conducive. Are you sure that was the suggestion?” 

 

Ryuji shrugged, feeling chastised, somehow. 

 

Yusuke sipped his tea, thoughtful spirals of careful emeralds and beige filling the space between them. “I believe what you were experiencing earlier is called ‘dissociation’. Losing track of time and yourself. It’s common, it’s not a sign of deficiency or weakness.” 

 

“I… what?” Ryui blinked. 

 

Yusuke smiled. “Dissociation. It’s a common after effect of an anxiety attack.”

 

Ryuji’s heart dropped. He’d never had a problem with Yusuke’s blunt way of speaking before, but this felt different. His mind flashed abruptly with images of the gang meeting up to talk about how messed up he was, how dramatic he was being because what kind of hero has anxiety attacks right? Mifune had only brought up that word recently, he’d just started rounding out the words in his head, unpinning them as something far off and unreal and tying them closer to his shirt lapels instead. If Yusuke knew, and with that calm serene green aura as always, that meant. Well, it meant too many things, in Ryuji’s reeling mind. 

 

“Did Akira tell you?” He blurted, eyes wide. “That’s not. I mean, I’m not.”  _ Not what? Not panicking? _ “Dude, you can’t just-”

 

Yusuke held up a hand, leaning closer across the table. His eyes flashed like steel doors. “Akira told me nothing. I inferred it as I have experience with the particular symptoms.”

 

Ryuji breathed. “Oh.” The flashing imagined conversations vanished, replaced by something more familiar. “Oh! Then….you too?” He almost whispered, a strange and embarrassing amount of hope rising in his throat.

 

“Not recently.” Yusuke sipped his tea again. “I remember the feeling, however. Much of my…. Earlier works…. Had a common theme of existing outside the frame, if you recall.”

 

Ryuji remembered Yusuke’s explanations back when they’d first defeated the King, when the fall out had them all waking up all hours of the night, opening group chats in the dark and looking for reassurances that it was really all over. Ryuji’d always had a particular fascination with the way Yusuke described his art, the passionate excitement always shone brighter than any of the paints behind him. More beautiful than anything in a museum; not that Ryuji was good at knowing shit about art. 

 

He’d painted a lot of lonely looking things back then. Too bright, washed out, like looking at someone through a fog. 

“Yeah,” Ryuji nodded. His lips flattened in tense thought. Suddenly, the fog and washed out greys seemed more fitting than they ever had; he’d seen a lot of the same shades in other people but never connected them. Kind of like what Mifune had said, seeing but not knowing.  _ Huh.  _

 

Here he’d been crediting himself with knowing that much about people, that he could pick up on the little things people did that meant danger or safety if nothing else. Once again, he remembered how bad he’d always been at understanding the ‘in-between’s of people. 

 

“How’d...how’d you deal with it?” Ryuji stared down at the table, embarrassed in a too raw way, like Yusuke had managed to drag out the things in his brain he didn’t understand and forced him to look at it. Gentler, though, than Mifune usually went about it. Knowing Yusuke understood and wasn’t throwing pity at him like a bandaid over a gaping wound, it was bolstering. Centering. 

 

“I often find talking with friends can help. Along with painting or utilizing a creative portion of the self.” Ryuji grimaced, and Yusuke huffed a quiet laugh. “Finding objects you can feel, taste, smell, so on. Grounding actions.” 

 

Ryuji hummed thoughtfully. “Does it get uh, less…. Yanno.”  _ Scary,  _ he thought.  _ Like you’re looking at yourself from across the room. Like you’re a video game character and the screen is about to turn off. Does it get less….Dramatic? _

 

Yusuke’s calm green turned a shade painful, sad almost. “I find I became more accustomed to it. And the bouts were shorter as I learned.” 

 

Ryuji let out a breathe he didn’t know he was holding. His head felt less floaty, just talking. The sounds around them less like something banging on the glass to get through, more a part of reality. 

 

“I’m sorry I never helped you back then, with all this. Must have been scary doin’ it alone.” His ears burned, he hunched his shoulders upwards and stared hard at the grains of the table.  _ Stupid selfish Ryuji _ . Mifune said it was fine to be selfish once in a while, but maybe he’d always been. Entirely oblivious and wrapped up in the drama of his own head. Of course Yusuke had been struggling, with all the shit he’d been forced to pick up and carry along over the years it was really amazing how confidently the guy carried himself. Yusuke had always inspired Ryuji in a way he couldn’t pinpoint beyond vague nerves and sparks of light; knowing he’d dealt with this, the stupid brain stuff Ryuji couldn’t think around or sound out in his head, the guy truly was stronger than most people gave him credit for. 

 

Didn’t mean he should have to be, though.  _ Stupid, selfish, no-good- _

 

“Ryuji,” Yusuke’s hand lightly rested on Ryuji’s, wrapped too tightly around his mug. Ryuji forced himself to look up, caught the flash of pure sparkling gold in the artists eyes. Yusuke frowned, just a downward lilt of his brows. “It pains me to see you close yourself up as you do. You’ve never done anything  _ other _ than help. You were always around in the group conversations, no matter the time. You were my _ friend _ .” He paused for a moment, eyes scanning Ryuji’s expression like he was waiting for something. “Don’t discredit your support, I find myself relying on it far too often.”

 

Ryuji sniffed. “Aw, come on. Not like I did anything special.” 

 

Yusuke’s hand tightened. “Sakamoto Ryuji, you _ do not see what we do.  _ It would be best if you did not presume to either.” 

 

“What… um...,” Ryuji glanced down at his drink for a moment; the question burned at his tongue, but he wasn’t sure he could let it loose. These were the Big Impossible Things. The hurdles he’d never been able to clear. It felt like asking for too much, somehow, like he might spook off a friendship years in the making. But then…. They deserved more trust, didn’t they? If he could give them each anything, it could be trust, couldn’t it?

 

He glanced up, caught Yusuke’s measured, calm gaze. 

 

“What do you see when you look at me?” Yusuke asked. 

 

Ryuji bit his lip, describing the way things just  _ were  _ was his least favorite thing. Like explaining what happiness felt like, something you couldn’t grab hold of but you knew was there. “I guess… it’s like. Bein’ in a tea shop when it’s raining. You’re like…. When the snow just landed and nobody’s messed it up with their muddy boots yet.” He shrugged. 

 

Yusuke was smiling, it was a burst of silver dust. Ryuji paused. “You’re like, the way the light hits ice and goes all sparkly.” He blushed a little, glancing away. “Or whatever.” 

 

“Sparkling ice, how enchanting…” Yusuke tapped his chin, thoughtfully. 

 

Ryuji fidgeted. “What about, uh, me. What do you see?” 

 

“Hm, I think.” Yusuke’s thoughts were a mosaic that had come to life. Whenever he got particularly inspired or creative, it was artwork on it’s own, Ryuji always lost his breath a little around it. 

 

“I think if I were to paint it, I would start with the sun.” 

 

“Huh?” 

 

“Mm, the sun and then work outwards. All the refractions and the warmth, constant. Dependable. And then add the sunset, the hues and passion, the way everything around becomes dipped in an array of new shades. That’s you, I think.”

 

Ryuji gaped. 

 

“You know, I’ve often found myself envious of your ability to see so much. I’ve thought it might be a constant inspiration, to paint every emotion as they translate.” Yusuke leaned in, hand on his chin. “Now, I wonder, how anyone could see so much, and yet miss their own brilliance. Ah, yes the sun. A fitting metaphor.”

 

“A-aha, that’s sweet n’ all but-”

 

“Ryuji, why do you not believe me?” Yusuke asked as though it was upsetting to him, like Ryuji had just turned down a gift Yusuke had spent hours creating. It was like it  _ hurt  _ him. 

 

“I….” 

 

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Ryuji gulped, eyes wide and dazed. He trusted his friends, but could he really trust them if he believed they’d forget about him the second he made a mistake? He’d made tons before, and the most he’d gotten was a flick in the forehead from Makoto for being impulsive. He knew Yusuke wouldn’t lie to him, he knew the words he’d said were genuine, because that’s who Yusuke was. So why weren’t his words enough?

 

Maybe Ryuji had spent so much time needing to be someone, needing to prove he was  _ good _ ,  _ good enough _ , he’d gotten lost right there in the center of it. Maybe it was enough. Maybe he had to believe that Yusuke saw something so incredible in him, that he’d seen all the dirty ugly bits, the parts Ryuji hated about himself, and maybe they didn’t matter so much to him. 

 

“Thanks Yusuke,” he managed. Ryuji’s lips tilted upwards, watching the happy glint of relief work its way across Yusuke’s face. The first beam of sunlight he let through, and few things had ever been brighter. 

  
  
  


It wasn’t as if things changed over night. In fact it was pretty frustrating how Not Changed they were for a while, Ryuji still caught himself second guessing, assuming too much, still found the frantic hummingbird skin crawling heat blistered feeling coating his lungs in awful anxious sludge. 

 

Akira convinced him to take a few days off here and there, to trust his team and the other heroes to pick up the inbetweens. He threaded their fingers together, pulled Ryuji down on their brand new couch and plopped movies on, playing with his bangs idly for hours. Sometimes Ryuji would show up at Akira’s work, arcade tokens in a plastic bag like they used to at UA every Friday. Ann and Shiho invited him out for coffee, or to spas or once a wrestling match. Yusuke and Akira took him out to dinner once, the three of them, which had made his chest grow funny and warm in delight. 

 

He learned to be happier, to relax, in laughter lines and in memories. Too slow to catch, but all at once enveloping.

 

One day, he woke up and realized he wasn’t struggling to get out of bed. That the world didn’t seem like an endless To Do list he could never stay on top of, that it was less Him Against Everything and more windchimes and movie nights and long hours on a phone line, it was trust and love and everything in between, and he was happier. 

 

The realization isn’t a cold snap, or even a jolt of surprise when the rain clouds part. It started like a whisper but then built outwards and inwards until there was nowhere left in his lungs to breathe.

 

That’s the thing about life, he guessed, once you stopped breaking off pieces of yourself and colouring outside of the lines, the more you realized there’d never been lines at all. 

 

The problem wasn’t that it was complicated, or that Ryuji wasn’t smart enough to fit the puzzle together the way everyone else around him could. Fear grew like vines and thorns if you weren’t careful, all tangled up with self-doubt and justifications that dug their roots in underneath all the kind words and supportive hands; he’d always been two parts oblivious and one part stubborn.

 

It started with group hang outs, with shorter office nights and longer time being Ryuji instead of Skull. With less time in front of cameras, with more care about injuries and risks, with team efforts instead of solo missions, with waiting for backup. It started with trusting that his friends wanted him around for more than just what he could do for them, with trusting that they loved him as much as he fiercely loved them. It started with being enough. For himself, for his friends. It started with remembering that nobody was always alright, least of all him. 

 

The problem had always been being brave enough to be afraid. 

 

Ryuji wasn’t sure when everything had turned out so amazingly  _ good _ . He was grateful, endlessly and wholly, and maybe it was okay to believe he deserved it, too. 

  
  


“Akira, when are you home tonight again?” He smiled into the receiver, pushing his cellphone harder against his shoulder as he tried to manhandle the decorations. 

 

“Mmm… I think we’re nearly finished finalizing all the paperwork, so maybe around 5:30 or so?” Akira sounded a little flat, it had been a long day. A long week actually, the assignment he’d been placed on had taken him out of the country for a few days. Akira couldn’t fall asleep on planes on top of the standard jet lag, and then had to wrap up the technical filing process as soon as he’d returned. Poor guy had fallen face first into their bed at midnight and was up again at 5AM this morning. 

 

“Boss letting you out early for once?” 

 

Akira snorted. “Not likely, Sae doesn’t believe in things like holidays or breaks. Just so happens there’s not much left to do, no sense paying me extra.” 

 

“You’re just too much of a nerd, handing in your homework early like always,” Ryuji teased. 

Akira’s smile was sunshine against his cheek. “How about you?” Ryuji knew what Akira was asking, _ ‘how are you handling taking a whole day off alone at home?’ _

 

“Been keepin’ myself busy,” Ryuji shrugged, despite the fact Akira couldn’t see it. 

 

Akira’s voice sounded a little more cautious. “Yeah?”

 

Ryuji’s heart was so full, so, so full. “Mmhm, guess you’ll have to come home and find out, huh?” 

 

He glanced around the kitchen, Ann smirked at him as he winked back. Her eyes absolutely sparkling with barely contained excitement. Shiho squeezed her hand with a grin. 

 

“Ask him if he’s wearing his ugly sweater!” Futaba stage whispered, and was met with a chorus of hissed ‘shut up’s’ from everyone else. Her grin was shark like, mischievous and absolutely thrilled. 

 

“What was that?” Akira asked.

 

Ryuji turned away, stepping into the other room. “Oh, watching TV, sorry.”

 

“You’re not skipping ahead an episode are you? I leave you at home one day and you’re already cheating on me,” Akira gasped dramatically. Ryuji was practically bursting with the need to explain just how hilarious and wildly incorrect that was, but he was under threat of murder from Makoto if he dared ruin their surprise scheme. 

 

He pulled out the box in his pocket idly, “Pfft, dude as if. I only watch those cheesy dramas for you, anyways.”

 

“Oh? Is that why you were sniffling last episode?” Akira’s voice went all velvety, the way it did when he was being particularly smarmy. Ryuji loved it. He loved Akira’s voice, their home, their friends. 

 

“You heard nothin’, I ain’t a crybaby!” 

 

“Of course not,” Akira agreed easily. “Hey, I’m proud of you, Ryu. I know I haven’t been around much this week but-”

 

“None of that,” Ryuji interrupted. “Just get home soon, okay?”

 

“Will do. I love you, Ryuji.” Akira breathed, static and gold across the phone line. 

 

Ryuji twisted the ring around in his fingers, a bright blossom of adoration and excitement pooling in his chest. “I love you, too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this little rambly introspective adventure! I wasn't sure if I was going to throw in that last bit, but yanno, in the vein of letting yourself be happy it seemed fitting. As always I'm on tumblr or twitter as clankclunk if you want to cry about Ryuji with me ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on twitter/tumblr @ clankclunk


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